


Reunion

by ScarletteStar1



Series: I WILL FIND YOU- AU and Canon Divergent Stories about OTPs Reaching Across Time and Space To Be Where They Belong [14]
Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Love, Lust, Modern Vicbourne, Vicbourne, implied vicbert yuck, lord m is a sexy professor ayeeeee!!!, otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: "I didn’t care about our age difference. I never cared!” She uttered the words. “I was devoted to you, William! I would have followed you to the ends of the earth and I would not have cared if there were a penny between us! Did you even know it? Did you even care? You were my first love!” She grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him into her so their faces were barely a breath apart. His hands dropped and encircled her waist.They stared at one another, caught in the space where forest met sky, breathing hard and fast.“And you were my only love,” he said at last.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmyPop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyPop/gifts).



> This little story is dedicated to a very special reader, friend, and my Vicbourne champion. Miss AmyPop, you are one of the most enthusiastic readers and commenters I have ever had the pleasure to interact with on AO3. Your joy and support is truly an inspiration. I could not leave the fandom entirely without crafting this story for you. I hope your Vicbourne shaped heart enjoys this little gift.

Clammy anxiety coated her palms and attempted to convince her to keep away.

Just for a little longer.

She rolled her eyes and pursed her lips. There was no more avoiding this. She was a professional, after all, and his boss.

Victoria inhaled deeply as she approached William’s office, and let it out in a very slow, silent exhalation. She half hoped he’d be out, or in a closed-door session with a student so she’d be relegated to leave the stack of doctoral thesis papers in his mail box.

Or maybe he’d already left for the day. It was late after all; barely anyone was left in their building. But as she came up the stairs and rounded the corner, she saw the warm glow of his desk lamp.

She knew where his office was, as she’d paced by it after hours when she was positively certain he was away from the University. So, she was familiar with the way light fell from his doorway. He made a habit of leaving his door open, unlocked. Rumor had it he encouraged his students to help themselves to his copious volumes of literary works. A week or so previously, when she’d inquired about documentation related to some research she was doing, another professor had laughed and suggested she visit the “Melbourne Honor System Lending Library.” Victoria had looked askance at her colleague, who had replied that “Prof M” had just about every rare volume of which she could ever dream in his shelves.

“And he just lends them out?” She’d asked.

“Yes. I don’t think anyone else could ever get away with it. We’d all be robbed blind. But he’s so revered by his students. They adhere to his honor system like it’s some sort of ancient code. You’d think we were a law school and not the department of advanced literary studies, but he’s never lost a book yet.” The colleague, who happened to be a youngish female had a fairly reverent look in her eye herself. Victoria recognized it and quickly ignored it.

Out of relentless curiosity, she’d brought herself to his doorway, and admired the neatly lined shelves of leather bound books, as her own sense of revered awe swelled in her.

His space.

While she’d never seen it before, it was somehow familiar to her. It spoke to her soul of him. It caused a smile to tickle her lips.

Simply standing in his doorway, she had been able to smell him. She had closed her eyes and breathed in a slightly stale, wooly smell mingled with a spicy herbal aroma, and the musky amber of his cologne. Really, she thought, it could have been patented by a boutique into a candle and sold for millions. It was almost intoxicating to her. Elderly paper, unwashed sweaters, dusty curtains, cigar smoke, melted wax. It was a smell of earthy comfort.

It was a smell of home.

She was there on a weekend in the afternoon. The shades were drawn, and dust motes sparkled in the sunlight.

She remembered reading that dust is made up mostly of dead skin cells, and she fluttered internally as she imagined his skin entombed in her lungs.

Mozart’s Requiem throbbed in her bones.

She longed to tell him.

She knew she couldn’t.

She spent the rest of the week avoiding him most successfully.

Now, she stood in the golden glow of his door, and there he was. She took a moment to collect herself, and so absorbed was he in his task, he did not notice her appearance. His brown, wingtip clad feet were up on his desk. He studied something as she studied him. He wore glasses, which at first startled her, but then she realized suited him. She shifted the bunch of documents in her arms to one side so she could use her other hand to knock.

“Knock, knock,” she said softly and was instantly overcome with embarrassment. “It’s always so foolish to say you’re knocking as you do it, isn’t it?” She offered with a light laugh.

“Well, hello there,” William said as he looked up. He took his feet off his desk and folded his long legs beneath it. “I wondered when I’d see you around these parts.”

“Yes. Hi. And here I am,” she said. He was dressed from head to toe in a suit of fawn colored wool that looked obscenely soft. She wanted to touch it. She swallowed hard. She realized for her awkward little laugh, she was not smiling at all, so she forced her lips to stretch across her face into something resembling mirth.

“How are you settling in, Victoria?” He asked. He hadn’t risen from his seat, but he’d pushed away from his desk, and leaned back in his plush, leather chair to examine her. “Or should I call you Mrs. ummh what was his last name again?”

“Oh, no. No. Victoria is fine. Certainly. Or Dr. Kensington. I kept my so-called maiden name. It’s what I’m published under, after all.” She hadn’t meant to sound terse but she supposed she did. Terse or no, her honest response caused William to chuckle.

“I’d expect nothing less of you,” he said. “But where on earth have you been keeping yourself?You’ve been here almost a month now, and I’ve not seen so much as your shadow. One might think you were avoiding one.”

“Well it’s only been three weeks, hasn’t it? It has been quite a whirlwind.” She said, but she thought of all the ways she had deliberately managed to avoid him. “Anyway, I’ve brought you the selection of doctoral thesis for the candidates you will be supervising this term. I’ve not reviewed them all thoroughly, but they seem a promising lot. A good deal of Dickens and Bronte and the like. There’s something rather different about Thackeray’s Christmas Books, which I thought rather surprising, but at any rate I don’t think you’ll be bored.”

“Ah, yes. Where would we be without Thackeray? Thank you.” At this he rose, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and made to take the parcel of documents from Victoria. Startled by his rising, she seemed to fall back, and clutch them tighter to her chest. “If I may?” He asked gently.

“Of course,” she said, and held them out to him. She’d not anticipated the closeness. She’d not anticipated the verdant depths of his eyes, or the memories to which they would drag her instantly.

_What did you think of the movie, Victoria?_

_Movie? Was there a movie? I recall only a hand between my thighs._

_And what of that?_

_Hmmmm. I couldn’t say._

_Oh, is that so? Because my fingertips are wrinkled like prunes from how wet you were. And your bottom lip is puffy from how hard you were biting it while you were trying to be quiet. I’d say you liked the movie very much. I’d say you gave it five, no ten, stars!_

_Oh, you devil!_

_What will you do about it?_

_Wait and see, William!_

The echos of their laughter bounced off the walls as he glanced briefly through the papers. She examined his eyes from that angle, and how the lenses of his glasses magnified them. “You wear glasses now,” she said softly.

“I do,” he said and glanced back up at her. “I’ve worn them for several years now. Mostly for reading, and driving, and watching the television, and well, pretty much anything else I want to be able to actually see.” He smiled and chuckled drolly at her. She laughed a little more genuinely than she had previously. He placed the papers on a corner of his tidy desk. With her arms suddenly empty, Victoria fumbled to figure what to do with them and settled for jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“We’ll figure out at the department meeting which candidates are moving forward this year, so if you can give them a review at your leisure, that would be great.”

“That’s right, you’re my boss now, aren’t you?” He smiled.

“Only for this term while Professor Peele is on sabbatical,” she clarified.

“And then?”

“I’m not sure yet. Or, I suppose I should say we’re not sure yet. Albert is looking at several different positions, possibly overseas, so. . . we shall see.”

“Ahh, yes. Albert. How is he?”

“He’s fine,” Victoria said and did not offer anything else on the subject. She tried to smile with a little tilt of her head so she could look up at him. He removed his glasses, folded them, and slipped them into his front pocket without breaking her gaze. “It is good to see you,” she surprised herself by saying. But it was true.

“It’s been a long time.” He blinked and laced his hands behind his back.

“It has been.” She cleared her throat and asked, “Do you find me very different now?”

“We all change, but for you, I’m sure it’s only for the better, _Dr. Kensington_ ,” he said softly, drawing out her name and looking at her with a glimmer in his eye.

“Oh,” she sighed and frowned.

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s the first time I’ve heard you call me that, and I believe I prefer for you to simply call me by my first name after all.”

He moved his hands to the pockets of his trousers, disrupting the line of his coat as he did so. She felt a ridiculous urge to reach out and straighten his coat, but she dug her nails into her palms.

“Very well, _Victoria_.” His voice was deep and rumbled through her like thunder quaking and waking her in the middle of a long night. His voice was the same as she’d remembered, and yet it had been so long since she’d heard it. “But where are my manners, would you like to come in? Sit down so we can properly catch up. I can even make us some tea, or if you’re in the mood I have a very nice brandy in my desk that I save for special occasions.”

Victoria still hovered in his doorway. “Special occasions?”

“I’d say this qualifies, wouldn’t you?” He raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes back and forth in a familiar gesture, his head moving ever so slightly with his eyes. It caught her off guard.

“Oh, alright,” she sighed and took a step into his roomy office. Where could there possibly be any harm in two old friends catching up properly? He gestured toward a cozy sitting area and she chose a seat on the couch. Immediately after she’d sat down, she realized she should have picked one of the chairs so there would be less of a chance of proximity to him. William procured the brandy and a couple of mismatched cups and joined her. Naturally, he chose to sit next to her on the couch, at a respectable distance, but close enough that she could feel his warmth and breathe the same air as him. He handed her a glass and they both held them up. “What are we toasting?”

“Mmmh,” he said and looked up at the ceiling in contemplation. “We could toast your new job? Or we could celebrate a reunion long overdue?”

“Yes,” she said. “I like that.” They clinked glasses and sipped. “I’ve heard you have quite the reputation as a librarian,” she started, but as her eyes swept around his shelves, something suddenly caught them and she stood suddenly. “William! Is that what I think it is?” Setting her glass down, she walked to the shelf where a small, black, marble statue of a rook perched on top of a cube of fiery, orange carnelian. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands.

_She will watch over you._

_A solitary rook is such a lonely creature._

_As are we._

Bitterly, she had cried, after giving it to him, knowing it was farewell. Rubbing her thumb over the cool, smooth stone, she felt the same tears rising in her now. “You kept this?” She held it up to him, her mouth, open incredulously.

“Of course I did,” he said simply. He stood and met her before the shelves. “You gave it to me. I couldn’t very well pitch it. It’s a precious little thing, in it’s own way,” he said and took it from her hand. As he took the figurine, she felt his hands and grabbed them, touching him at last.

“Did you miss me?” She whispered up at him, her voice almost wild in its desperation. All of her titles and degrees and publications fell away from her and drifted out as easily as feathers on a breeze over the ocean.

“‘Course I did,” he swallowed. His thumb rubbed over her knuckles. “Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you, haven’t wondered how you are, if you’re happy, what you’re doing.”

“And you? Are you happy?”

“Oh, I do alright,” he sighed, but his eyes looked very sad, almost misty. “My teaching keeps me occupied.” He paused and looked down, then back up at her. “I like to know he takes care of you, and you’re enjoying married life. It’s enough to keep me going, I suppose, to know you’ve given your heart completely and wisely.”

Victoria huffed. “I wouldn’t say that.”

She allowed him to dive into the depths of her eyes. “What would you say?” His voice was barely more than a leaf drifting against a paving stone. He looked down to where their hands were joined. She watched his eyes as they absorbed their hands, tangled together, as they were.

“I would say,” she began and contemplated all the reasons she should not continue. She was his interim superior. She was married. She was his past. He was. . . he was. . . “I would say I gave my heart once, and from that point on it was never again mine to give. I would say I have regretted every moment since and,” she gulped on the words and looked up at him, “and I regret this moment now. I regret coming here. I thought I could, but I find. . .”

“What? What do you find, Victoria?” He gently removed the marble rook from her fingers and placed it on the shelf. When he had done so, he let his hands drop to his sides and he looked at her with eyes in which she was instantly lost and found. She clasped her hands over her stomach. They stood this way, silent and impossibly close to one another for several beats until Victoria realized she’d been holding her breath and let it go in a ragged sob. Her knees quivered. “Come, sit,” William said and guided her back to the couch. When they were settled there, she placed her hand on his arm and felt the material of his jacket. She rubbed it up and down. It was luxuriously fine.

“So soft,” she murmured.

“Since,” he began and then paused to catch his breath and clear his throat. “Since we parted ways, I’ve found myself somewhat keen on soft textures.” His admission was plain, and yet it stabbed a part of Victoria she had long forgotten had existed.

“Oh. Oh, you break me!”

“I do not mean to, Victoria,” he murmured. He looked down between their knees which were perilously close together.

“How?”

“How? How what?”

“How could you forsake me? Back then?”

He caught the tear rolling down her cheek with his finger. “Did you imagine I wanted to leave you?” His face paled and appeared suddenly gaunt.

“I didn’t know. You left. All I knew was you left me.” Victoria’s shoulders shuddered as she said the words that had been buried for so many years beneath her marriage.

“You had Albert. He was young, your age, handsome. He had everything you needed. I wanted you to have those things that I was afraid I couldn’t give you.” William cupped her cheek and stroked it with his hand. She leaned into him. She looked up and whimpered.

“Fuck! Fuck it all! I didn’t care about our age difference. I never cared!” She uttered the words. “I was devoted to you, William! I would have followed you to the ends of the earth and I would not have cared if there were a penny between us! Did you even know it? Did you even care? You were my first love!” She grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him into her so their faces were barely a breath apart. His hands dropped and encircled her waist. They stared at one another, caught in the space where forest met sky, breathing hard and fast.

“And you were my only love,” he said at last.

“Don’t lie to me now. Don’t fucking lie to me!”

“I’m not lying, Victoria. I never loved anyone like I love you before, and I’ve not loved a single soul since. My heart was yours completely.” He nodded toward the bookshelf. “I’ve spent the past years imagining myself partner only to that rook over there. I’ve not even been with another woman. That’s the truth. I’ve loved you alone. It’s the only truth I know.”

She shook him by his lapels, but gently. “This is why I’ve avoided you,” she said at last with a pathetic sniffle.

“Ah, so you have been avoiding me then,” he grinned rakishly.

“You devil,” she said.

“Oh, you have no idea,” he returned the joke, and he smiled, but it was utterly mournful.

She lowered her eyes and nodded. She released the grip on his jacket and smoothed her fingers over it. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“For what? You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Not ever.”

“You’ve always been far more gracious than I deserve, William,” she said. She picked up her glass and quickly drained her brandy. It was far too fine to gulp down in the manner she did, but needs must. “I should go. I must go.” She rose from the sofa.

“I suppose Albert is waiting?”

“No. Not at all. In fact, he’s traveling. He’s on the interview circuit at the moment.” Victoria tugged down her jacket to straighten herself, and turned toward the door. William stood to see her out.

“It was lovely to see you, Victoria,” he said, and she noted how he twirled her name around in his mouth like a sweet, warm piece of taffy. She imagined the constants sticking to his teeth, and the vowels flooding his tongue. It made her want to unbutton her blouse and thrust her breasts at him. It made her want to rip his clothes open and find his skin with her skin. It made her want. It made her want and want, but she found herself in his doorway again.

“I’ll be here for six months anyway,” she offered.

“We should have lunch?”

“And then?”

“And then,” he growled. She put her hand against the wood of his door to steady her as he stepped toward her.

“Will you let me go again?”

“If I must.” He lowered his head. She could not see his eyes. “Of course.”

“You’ll allow him to take me to India, or Africa, or Borneo?” She found herself breathing fast.

“Is there much of a demand for Astrophysics professors in Borneo?”

“Possibly? I don’t know. That’s not the point.”

“If it is what you want, then I would never stand in your way.” Still he did not look up.

“And if it is not what I want?”

“What do you want?” He looked up at her at this, his face full with confusion and concern and sorrow. Her eyes fluttered. She could not breathe. All the reasons she should not continue to speak flooded her and receded like a wave. But on the next wave, all the reasons she needed to speak, and all the words that had been kept dormant in her soul for so many years rose up like a triumphant tide.

“What I’ve always wanted,” she straightened her shoulders and managed to boldly state.

“And that is?”

“My first love.”

“Victoria,” he breathed in a mixture of trepidation and desire.

“William,” she choked. “Please.”

“Anything.”

“Kiss me?”

Instantly, he was before her, and he caught her in his arms. He held her close against him and stroked her hair off her forehead. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” she murmured. She yielded to his embrace like a lump of gold to a jeweler’s torch, easily, readily. And she did not close her eyes, until the very last moment when his face had lowered to hers, and was so close she had no other choice because his beautiful eyes were so blindingly bright.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, thank you so much for reading. I appreciate comments very much and try my best to respond to everyone. . . I wrote this as a one shot, but am thinking there might be one or two more chapters, depending on response... let me know what you think. xoxo.


End file.
